Universal self of Hinduism / SAT 9-9-23 / Thieves who target pedestrians in historic parlance / Political subject of the 2018 memoir "Nino and Me" / Title that shares an etymology with admiral / Half sister of Meredith Grey / Branch of study that challenges heteronormativity / First coed and racially integrated college in the South / Vacation destination in the Ionian Sea

Constructor: Robert S. Gard

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: BEREA (41A: First coed and racially integrated college in the South) —

Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. The college provides a work-study grant that covers the remaining tuition fees after subtracting the total sum a student received from Pell Grant, other grants, and scholarships. Berea's primary service region is southern Appalachia but students come from more than 40 states in the United States and 70 other countries. Approximately one in three students identify as people of color.

Berea offers bachelor's degrees in 33 majors. It incorporates a mandatory work-study program that requires students to engage in a minimum of 10 hours per week of work for the college. (wikipedia) (my emph.)

• • •

This started out way too easy. Suspiciously easy. Tuesday easy. Plus it started with SCALIA, and the absurdly-spelled BASSES, so things were somewhat unpleasant and disappointing, if very fast-moving, early on. But once I got into the middle of the grid, things started to zoom-zoom and whoosh-whoosh a lot more. The fill wasn't exactly sparkling, but it was solid, and I was flying every which way, which I kinda like (it's more efficient, most of the time, to work sections to completion in a methodical way, but sometimes the lure of the whoosh is too much and you careen around until you find yourself somewhere like this:

You can see a lot of the answers I didn't get at first pass, including CAVES, which was about the last thing to go into the puzzle. In fact ... yeah, CHANCEL was last (32D: Church part near the altar), so CAVES was also last. Looked at it early, didn't have any idea, and only saw it again when I'd finished. Very Saturday (i.e. very vague) clue on that one (32A: Folds). The meaning here is "gives in" or "concedes." Tough. But not the kind of tough that really holds you up, just the kind of tough that sends you bouncing off in another direction. Knowing BEREA really helped today. You can see how it allows me to cross the grid from DUST BUNNY all the way to the eastern edge, which I did with almost no trouble. After that came the high point of the grid—peak whooshing, when I finally put together the long crosses in the SW corner (almost simultaneously):

POETIC and THEORY colliding—now you're speaking my language, puzzle. QUEER THEORY was so "normative" to me in grad school (30 years ago) that the clue here actually threw me a bit (45A: Branch of study that challenges heteronormativity). I never talk about my dissertation here because who cares, but QUEER THEORY was definitely involved. Anyway, QUEER THEORY and WAXES POETIC coming ecstatically together was the moment I finally warmed to the puzzle. I cooled again, a bit, at FOOTPADS (wtf?) and again at the clue on ASSUME (12D: "So many ___, so little know" (proverb)), for a few reasons: because I've never heard this "proverb"; because "proverb" feels like pretty weak provenance; and especially because "little" feels screechingly wrong to my ears. If the "many" are people, then you really (really) want "few" here: "So many ASSUME, so few know." If it's countable, it's "few." And in this case, in addition to being grammatically correct, "few" just sounds way (way) better. So boo to that clue. But yay to most of the rest of this. Finished up in the SW corner, which is really varied and crunchy and nice. SLEAZY, sure, but nice-SLEAZY. And I absolutely loved that clue on OVA (48D: Monthly releases?). Me: "Uh ... EPS? But why would you put out an EP every month? How could you put out an EP every month, that's an insane level of productivity ... oh, it's an ovulation clue. Oh yeah, that makes way more sense."

Bullets:

• 1A: Many opera villains, traditionally (BASSES) — the plural of "basso" is "bassi" but also "BASSOS," so that is what I and many of you wrote in, come on, you know you did. Then you wondered what the hell an OMIR was and (if you're lucky) corrected accordingly (5D: Title that shares an etymology with "admiral" => EMIR). 
• 29A: Half sister of Meredith Grey on "Grey's Anatomy" (LEXIE) — look, it's hard enough for me to keep "Game of Thrones" characters straight; asking me to reach back into the "GA" universe is a bridge too far. Reminds me of a time in the aughts when the puzzle was like "remember this tertiary character from 'Ally McBeal'!" and I was like "I absolutely do not, please stop." [OK I'm only now discovering that "Grey's Anatomy" is still on the air!?!? 19 seasons in!? Wow, I am walled off from network TV so hard—if people I know watch this, they neeeeever talk about it. I assumed it had its big moment and then went away after a decade or so, as most shows do. I know Shonda Rhimes went on to create "Scandal," and then "Scandal" went away so ... yeah, her chronology is all messed up in my head, clearly. Wow. OK then. LEXIE. Sure.]

• 16D: ___ cakes (cupcakes, in the U.K.) (FAIRY) — had -AIRY. Thought maybe DAIRY (?). Had to wait on that cross, which turned out to be the "F" in FOOTPADS, which, again, wtf? "Historic parlance"? Wikipedia more aptly calls it "archaic."
• 42D: Universal self of Hinduism (ATMAN) — blanked on this, though I've seen it before.
• 28D: Unwanted discovery under the bed (DUST BUNNY) — "Unwanted," I guess, but if you have pets, inevitable. Although I guess to get to full-on "bunny" stage the pet hair has to have sat for a long time and combined with a lot of other crap you don't want to know about. We don't get much of that, but we do get little clumps of hair blowing across the hardwood floors like tumbleweeds on a pretty regular basis.
• 38D: Whim-whams (NERVES) — I just realized how I know this. I've heard it precisely once, in a movie called "5 Against the House," and it made me laugh so hard I took a screenshot with the captions on:

Hope your weekend is whim-wham free. See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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